The Defiant

Rain Before the Storm

Sparrow

At this point, I was questioning reality. 

So apparently, all my hot boyfriends and I were gifted superhuman abilities by Mother Nature, who is an actual person and who created Atlas and Gabby from dirt. So, he's pretty much Adam from The Bible mixed with the Grim Reaper? My head spun as I tried to grasp that. It spun more when I tried to grasp that I was the fucking sandman. Or something of the sort.  

I still hadn't fully processed as we got into the van that would drive us as close as they could to the facility. We were going to hike the last few miles. We all agreed that their defenses were probably up more than they ever have been, so it wouldn't be wise to be in a large vehicle. 

In the van, we each had a backpack filled with supplies for the trip, and the weapons Maralynn gave us. I didn't get a fun little gadget like Ezra and Josiah. Just a bulletproof vest and handgun. That was good enough... still would have liked glove tasers though.

Saya was seated next to me, leaning his head back on the metal wall. His throat bobbed and he took a deep breath. I could feel his dread seeping through him. I grabbed his hand and he looked at me with a blank expression. It wasn't blank because he was feeling nothing, it was blank because he felt too much. It was too overwhelming to process. "What's something that is bothering you?" I asked, trying to get him to focus on something and not spiral into a pit of doom. 

"I don't want to lose anyone else," he said simply. 

I squeezed his hand. "Will you tell me some more about your family, Saya? And can you tell me more about Ray?"

I could feel his mind focusing on them and his thoughts turned to a softer pattern. "My family... I had a mom, dad, sister, and brother. My parents met in San Francisco, I wanted to see it after they died. My sister, Journey..." A couple of tears left his eyes and his hands shook. "She should have lived longer. And my brother, Calum, should have too. He was only ten. Journey was eighteen. And Ray..." He wiped his tears from his cheek. "I wanted to be with him forever. But he's gone now. They are all gone."

Empathy wracked my heart, and I shed a few tears. 

"I don't know if I can handle losing any more people I love. I tried to keep up a happy act after it happened—as I recovered— but I have been so miserable," he admitted. 

"You don't have to pretend, love," I said. "You don't have to perform for us. We all know." 

He probably also had to use that happy act on the streets too. Appealing to the masses while your whole family and lover just died... god that must have hurt so bad. 

"How have you guys dealt with this?" He asked miserably. 

How have I dealt with this? I guess I had a few mental breakdowns by myself, but a few weren't enough to process all that happened. I am assuming my family was dead. Although I can't remember the impact of the explosion at all, so I guess they could still be alive and I subconsciously held onto that hope. Also, am I that heavy of a sleeper that I didn't remember being brought to the facility? Hmm...

"I guess I deal with it by not remembering it, Saya. I went to sleep in my bed and woke up in the hospital. I never really got confirmation that my family was dead, so I deny it mostly because I don't want to handle it." I looked down at my hands. I felt like I was missing something to add. 

"Also," Josiah piped up, "We must keep moving. It's a terrible thing to not allow yourself that time to grieve, but if you do not keep moving, then it will overcome you. That's what people like the General want. When my mom was attacked, she said that it changed things, but that we would keep surviving. And we do that by moving forward. There are bad people that live in this world, and if we let the bad that they do overcome us, they have won. "

I looked at him, a bit shocked. He was right, but I don't know if I could have ever thought to put it in such terms. 

"There will be time to grieve, and we won't ever truly stop, but in this moment, we can't get caught up," Josiah said to him. "I know that it's harsh, but-"

"But if we do, we could get killed." Saya finished. 

Yes... If we got caught up in the misery, it would affect our performance, and we needed to keep moving, or we would die. Not just in the physical sense, but we needed to keep progressing with this battle, or the other Mother would have time to fester, and we would be even more fucked than we already are. What a messed up world that we are in. 

I felt a new string of hope in Saya, one where we had ample time to process after all this was over, and one where we all stayed together and learned to love through the pain. I also felt reassurance in him. Reassurance from the net of our relationship. While we all would hurt—tremendously so— we would all be there for each other. 

"I think I am ready," he said. 

"For what?" I asked him. 

"To join the relationship. Officially, I mean."

Oh!

"Really?" I asked.

He nodded, and everyone's attention was on him. "Ray will always have a place in my heart that will hurt, and I know that it might be wiser to take more time to process that, but I don't want to hold onto the past—my time with them all—when it means risking my future." He grabbed my hand and looked into my eyes. "For a moment," he admitted, "I wanted to die with them. I didn't want to keep going. But then I decided I would rather live, for them and myself. Now... I want to live for that, and what I feel is happening with all of us. For a future with security, acceptance, and... and all that jazz."

"All that... jazz?" 

"Like love."

I snickered a little. "You love us?" I asked, making a kissy face. 

And then my face turned bright red as he kissed me right on the lips. "Yes I do," he stated. 

Ah, I could melt right here and now. 

But that warm fuzzy feeling slowed as the van came to a stop. "We're here," said the driver. The van door opened and we all piled out. 

"Alright team, onward we go," I muttered, looking out over the expanse of land. very, very far in the distance, I could see a speck that would be the facility walls.